


Afterglow

by pockettreatpete



Series: Manchester, NH [3]
Category: Political RPF - US 21st c.
Genre: Happy Sex, M/M, Past Infidelity, Reconciliation, moving forward, oh and also ass-eating, otp: wait that's my word, re-learning each other, two hot nerds
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-13
Updated: 2019-10-13
Packaged: 2020-12-14 13:27:31
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,049
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21016520
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/pockettreatpete/pseuds/pockettreatpete
Summary: After the Indiana primary, everything changes.





	Afterglow

**Author's Note:**

> I said I was never coming back to this universe. Clearly I lied. Hopefully this offering might mend some broken hearts. NOW I AM REALLY DONE because even as they make up I feel bad having put a fictional universe out there where Pete cheated in the first place.
> 
> I realized in writing this that at no point in Penitence do Pete and Chasten explicitly discuss whether Pete used protection when he, ahem, strayed, but let’s just assume that was covered in Pete’s 'tell me everything'-monologue, so the potential for STIs is not an issue. (Mainly because if not it makes VERY little sense that they had unprotected sex in Penitence.) 
> 
> I fucking hate songfic just on principle but there’s no way around the fact that this fic would not exist if crimson had not pestered me with Taylor Swift’s _Afterglow_ for like a month. If you want to, like, listen to the music that goes with this it’s that on repeat until Pete says “We’ll make time for this” and then switch to _Take me to church_ by Hozier, aka The Official Porn Writing Song of PTP(™).

The night of the Indiana primary, Chasten moves back in to the master bedroom. 

They’ve spent the last eight months more apart than together. Pete told Lis, because nobody on their staff is an idiot but least of all her, and took a verbal beating (and something of a literal one) for his absolute stupidity. She discreetly pulled some strings with the travel team to make sure that nobody would key on to the fact that they’ve spent the night in the same place more rarely than they used to. When they’ve had to, they’ve slept in the same hotel room bed, awkward and quiet. At home, Chasten has stayed in the guest bedroom. The sound of the door decisively shutting has carved a fresh little wound in Pete’s battered heart every night.

Every other aspect of their life has slowly normalized, and for long stretches of time it has felt like they were something like roommates, friends. Chasten is more physical with his friends than he’s been with Pete, though. They’ve only touched rarely, kissed and hugged only when it’s been required for the public and the cameras. Sometimes Pete’s seen a photo of the two of them in his Twitter feed that’s made him want to throw his phone across the room, because it looks so real and he knows it isn’t. Knows Chasten’s look of absolute affection died out, replaced with something less intimate, as soon as the camera was out of the room. Ever the theater kid.

He hasn’t been fooling himself. If it was going to get better it would have by now. Chasten is being the better husband, the better man, staying and working to elect Pete president despite his betrayal. When the campaign ends, however it ends, his marriage is over. 

Pete has tried to resign himself to it, but with every primary they’ve won he’s allowed himself a few moments of relief for another reprieve. Now they’ve won Indiana and there’s something approaching a 50/50 chance that he’s bought himself until November. 

Pete is caught off guard when his husband appears in the doorway and more still when he gets under the covers without a word. Pete’s already so keyed up from the night that he’s starting to think he might never sleep again, so when Chasten curls against Pete’s side and rests his head on his chest, he wonders how crazy his heartbeat must sound. He has a hundred questions, but worries that if he speaks, some kind of spell will break and Chasten will be gone again, so he keeps quiet and allows Chasten’s breaths to lull him to sleep. 

The next morning he’s supposed to go running, but when he wakes up a couple of minutes before his alarm Chasten is still sleeping heavily on Pete’s chest. Even though his arm is asleep he can’t bear the thought of moving, so he reaches for his phone and turns the alarm off, settling down in the warmth of Chasten’s embrace again. 

The next time he wakes up, it’s because his phone is ringing.

“So the rest of us were here at fucking 8:00 for the fucking 8:00 meeting,” Lis begins and Pete bolts upright, narrowly avoiding elbowing Chasten in the face. 

“Fuck!” He looks over at the alarm clock. 8:12. “We overslept.” 

“Over-fucki–– Wait a second,” Lis says. He can picture her getting up from her seat in the conference room, walking out and finding an empty office. “Okay,” she continues, “’we’ overslept? As in both of you? In the same room?”

“Yeah,” Pete replies. He’s very aware that Chasten is watching him, but he’s scared of what he’ll see if he looks back at him so he keeps facing forward. 

“I assume this is a recent development.”

“I’m not sure it’s a development,” Pete says. Lis has been holding this operation together with beer and emotional duct tape for more than half a year, she deserves honesty. 

“Well, that seems more important than what we’re doing here,” Lis replies. “Airport at 1:30?”

“1:30,” he assents and hangs up the phone. He hangs his head for a minute, taking deep breaths to calm the panicked pounding in his chest. 

“1:30 is the flight to Omaha?” 

He turns to look at Chasten, who’s sitting up and leaning back against the headboard. 

“Yeah. Apparently the meetings work better without us there anyway,” he jokes, and Chasten smiles faintly before he falls serious again. 

“So we have some time.”

“We do,” Pete says. He’s hit with a sudden premonition. Maybe this is it. Maybe Chasten can’t do this anymore. Maybe he’s met someone. Someone who will treat him right, the way Pete has failed to. Someone who will know what they have and not throw it away. Maybe this was their last night and Chasten felt nostalgic. Pete can’t face it, not yet, so he adds, before Chasten has a chance to speak: “Breakfast?”

He gets out of bed before Chasten can answer, and a bemused “Breakfast sounds good” follows him out of the room. 

He’s half-way through cooking breakfast when Chasten pads freshly showered into the kitchen and settles on one of the bar stools by the counter. 

At some point over the last eight months, his ability to talk to his husband about anything non-superficial or non-campaign-related has all but vanished, Pete realizes as he moves the bacon onto a paper towel. They’ve talked, on and off, about what happened, about how to forge a path forward, but time constraints and pressing concerns and debates and primaries have pushed it away over and over. At some point, he recognizes now, they stopped trying. He takes the eggs out of the pan and places them carefully on top of buttered toast. He glances over at Chasten, who is observing him with an almost eerie focus. 

He supposes what happened was it became more comfortable not to think about this huge painful crater in the middle of their marriage, working around it instead of working to repair it. The problem is, of course, that you can only tip-toe around an abyss for so long before something trips you up and you fall in. He hands Chasten their plates and gets the coffee. 

They sit where they always do, and everything is so fucking normal it’s hard to process what’s about to happen. That this is where his marriage dies. Over bacon and eggs. He waits. 

“We should eat first and talk after,” Chasten says. “Don’t want it to get cold.” 

Pete’s heart sinks, impossibly, even lower. If Chasten meant to deliver good news, he wouldn’t care if the food got cold or if they were hungry, would he? They eat in silence, and Pete tries to take it all in, commit their last meal together to memory. 

Finally, Chasten gets up and clears their plates, then sits back down across from Pete. 

“I…” He trails off, clearly conflicted, and Pete has to discipline himself not to jump in, tell him he knows, that Chasten doesn’t have to say the words. He does have to say them, Pete realizes, he does need to hear them. He watches the twitching corner of Chasten’s mouth, and his stomach clenches as he remembers the thousands of times he’s kissed it. 

“I need to apologize to you,” Chasten says. 

Pete meets his gaze, startled. “I’m sorry?”

Chasten looks down into his half-full cup of coffee. 

“Last night, on stage. You reached for me, and then you stopped. You were scared.” 

Pete doesn’t answer. He’s not sure where Chasten is going and he doesn’t know what to say. 

“You were scared of me,” Chasten repeats. “You were scared I’d reject you. Right there, on stage. After you won Indiana. That should have been, like, the happiest moment of this campaign and I ruined it for you.”

Pete finds his voice. “I ruined it for me. I did this,” he insists doggedly.

“I didn’t realize until last night that I forgave you a long time ago,” Chasten says. “I’m not sure when, exactly, but I did. And still I’ve been punishing you for so long.” 

Pete feels a little dizzy, happy that he’s sitting down. It doesn’t sound like they’re breaking up, which is the best news he’s had in eight months, but he’s also not sure he understands what his husband is saying. 

“That night,” Chasten starts. “When we…” Pete nods. He knows the night. The night they got back from New Hampshire and Chasten pushed him into the wall and then fucked him, rough and merciless. The last time Chasten touched him for anything but a photo op. He’s thought about that night much more than he really ought to, touch-starved and alone for eight months in a series of beds that have been too big. 

Chasten sighs, puts the coffee mug down. “Before you went to the office that afternoon, you asked if I’d be here when you got back. And that made me feel so powerful, after I’d spent two days feeling like all the power had been taken away from me. I decided the next day that I was staying. I should have told you, but I…” He trails off again. “I guess I liked having that power over you. And I guess I got used to it.”

Pete’s throat feels thick and his vision is starting to blur with unshed tears. He looks down at the table and tries to take in the pain Chasten has been in, tries to reconcile the pain he himself has felt. It’s unbearable that they have both gone through all of this because of Pete’s weakness. He knows he’ll cry if he tries to talk so he doesn’t. 

Chasten’s hand lands on top of Pete’s clasped ones on the table. 

“I’m so sorry, Peter. I know it’s a lot to ask, but I hope you can forgive me.” 

That, at least temporarily, scares away the lump in Pete’s throat and he meets Chasten’s eyes.

“I forgive you.” 

Chasten swallows. “I don’t know if you should.”

“I do.”

Pete opens his hands to take both of Chasten’s. Their kitchen is bathed in sunlight, their joined hands rest on their worn kitchen table, and it feels like church. 

“I do too,” Chasten replies with a crooked smile. Pete smiles back. 

“We have a lot of repair work to do,” Pete says. The crater needs to be boarded over, so they don’t lose any more time into it. 

“Well, good thing we don’t really have anything else going on,” Chasten quips, making Pete chuckle. 

“We’ll make time for this,” he says, solemnly, an oath. 

Chasten leans in and kisses him. He reciprocates gratefully, opens his mouth when Chasten’s hand settles on the back of his neck, holding him in place. Chasten tastes like coffee and new beginnings, and Pete wants to get closer but the table is in the way. Chasten notices his fidgeting and breaks the kiss to laugh delightedly. 

“Remember when I fucked you here?” he says and Pete has to close his eyes for a quick second. He remembers. 

Before he started dating, Pete had never quite imagined himself capable of the overwhelming passion that could sometimes lead to spontaneous sex against the nearest flat surface. He hadn’t been with Chasten long, though, before he realized that kind of passion doesn’t ignite _within_ people, but rather _between_ them. With Chasten, there was always ample kindling. The kitchen table had been a mutually satisfying one-time experiment, but had been taken off the list of future possibilities due to concerns over its structural integrity. 

“Maybe it’s due a repeat performance,” Chasten says teasingly and Pete has to steady himself against a sudden wave of lust. 

He’s half-formed the word 'yes' before he remembers there’s no lube strategically hidden around the first floor anymore, because there’s been no point. “Bed,” he suggests instead, and Chasten smiles. 

They pause briefly at the bottom of the stairs, Chasten pressing Pete against the wall and kissing him breathless. It’s impossible not to be assaulted by memories of the last time Chasten pressed him against a wall like this, how different it felt, how his body had responded to what it liked even when it hurt, when Chasten was cold and cruel. Pete loops his arms around Chasten’s shoulders and pushes away the memories. This is the opposite of loveless and cruel, and he could kiss Chasten until the end of time. 

It takes them forever to get to the bedroom, because they keep stopping every few steps to kiss, laughing at themselves and each other and then falling against each other again. It feels joyful in a way Peter hasn’t truly felt since everything happened, and it’s such a relief to see Chasten feeling the same way. 

They wrench each other’s t-shirts off in the hallway outside their bedroom, and burst through the door shoving at each other’s pants. Pete gets Chasten’s down to his knees and nudges him to sit down on the edge of the bed, falling to his knees between Chasten’s legs. He pulls Chasten’s pants and underwear the rest of the way off and leans in to take him in his mouth. 

He’s knelt before Chasten like this more times than he can count, but it has never felt so much like worship. The sound of Chasten’s soft gasps wash over him like an invocation. 

He’s always loved this, the earthy scent, the taste that is uniquely and unmistakably Chasten, the closeness, the life pulsing on his tongue, at once vulnerable and powerful. It’s all multiplied to the n-th degree because it’s been so long, and he wants so much to make this perfect. Chasten leans back, supporting himself with one hand and tangling the other in Pete’s hair. Pete works his tongue around the tip and is rewarded with a groan from his husband, then goes deeper, moaning when Chasten’s dick hits the back of his throat. He pulls out his favorite moves, and it’s working, he can tell, because Chasten’s hand tightens in his hair and his breaths start coming in heavy gulps. That, of course, is the moment his jaw just… Gives up. He pulls off in an inelegant rush and sits back. 

“Shit,” he says, looking up at Chasten who is watching him with concern. “Sorry.”

“It’s fine, P. You okay?” 

He rubs his jaw frustratedly. “Yeah, just out of practice, I guess.” He makes a face, which makes Chasten snicker. 

“We’ll get you back in practice,” he says, leaning down and kissing Pete, pulling him to his feet. “But for now you should come here.” He grabs Pete around the waist and twists to deposit him in a mess of limbs on the bed. Pete has to laugh, and then Chasten laughs, and it’s enough to make him slightly less annoyed with himself. 

Chasten undresses him gently, then lies down with his front pressed against Pete’s side, drawing him into a kiss and letting his fingers play with the hairs on Pete’s chest. 

He’s being kissed as though they have all the time in the world, which in a certain sense is true because the idea of a whole morning off has been science fiction for months. When they break apart, Chasten leans up on his elbow to hover over Pete, mapping the contours of Pete’s face with kisses. 

If before was an invocation, this is a benediction. Chasten trails his lips and tongue down Pete’s neck, paying particular attention to the spot about two inches under his right ear, then further down his chest. Pete has no control of the moan that escapes his lips when Chasten’s close around his nipple. He tries to focus, control his breath, hold on, but then Chasten licks two of his fingers and uses them to pinch his other nipple. He nearly chokes on the groan he tries to contain, and Chasten chuckles against his chest. Pete concludes, a few moments later when his brain works again, that the long period of abstinence must be what makes everything feel supercharged. Not least the trail of wet kisses across his stomach, heading south, though maddeningly slowly. 

The first touch of Chasten’s lips to his cock sends a gasp shuddering through him. He’s not a fan of terms like 'seeing God' to describe aspects of sex, but when he is enveloped in the wet heat of Chasten’s mouth for the first time in however long, he can certainly understand the idea. 

“God,” he moans, prompting Chasten to lift himself up and let his dick go with a lewd pop. 

“I want you to know that I very badly want to make a sacrilegious joke right now but I won’t,” he says before swallowing him down again, and Peter’s laugh crashes with another gasping inhale. 

“Fuck, Chasten,” Pete breathes. “I’m not going to last long if you keep––” 

In a flash, the heat is gone. He tries to suppress the instinctive whine that escapes him, and attempts to catch his breath. He looks up at Chasten who’s kneeling up between his legs grinning like a lunatic, and raises an eyebrow. 

“I have plans for you,” Chasten says. “You can’t come yet.” 

He looks so dementedly pleased with himself that Pete can’t help cracking up, despite his frustration. “Tell me about these plans.” 

“Not yet.” 

Chasten lays down alongside him and Pete kisses him, twisting unto his side to get a better angle. God, he’s missed this so much, can’t quite understand how he survived so many months without this, without Chasten’s tongue moving against his, legs tangling and drawing each other closer, fingers running along his side or twisting into his hair. 

Chasten hums into the kiss. “I could kiss you forever,” he says and raises an eyebrow when Pete breathes a laugh in response. “What?”

“I was thinking the same thing,” he admits, and his heart feels like it might outgrow his chest with joy as they giggle together. 

“Fuck me,” Chasten says, kissing him again. 

“Really?” he asks. 

Chasten shoots him a look of amused disbelief. “Are you really asking me ‘really’?” 

Pete kisses him a final time, and rolls over to root around in his nightstand. “I suppose the question is whether there’s any stuff in here that hasn’t calcified,” he says, just as he lays a hand on an unopened bottle of lube. “Bingo,” he says, wiggling his brows and making Chasten smile. 

He settles himself between Chasten’s legs, guiding them up and apart. He opens the bottle, then thinks better of it and closes it again. 

“What’s up?” Chasten asks, going for casual but not entirely able to conceal his wariness. 

“Just had an idea,” Pete says, as idly as he can affect, before laying down and nuzzling against Chasten’s groin, pressing kisses against the insides of his thighs.

He licks a long broad stripe up Chasten’s dick, then mouths at his balls. When he moves lower, he can hear Chasten’s breath hitch, and smiles to himself. He lets his tongue trace lower still and licks across Chasten’s hole. Chasten gasps, then sighs, relaxing into the touch. 

“Turn over for a minute.” 

He runs his hands over Chasten’s ass, squeezing it, then spreads the cheeks and dives in. He licks wetly across the hole, then blows cool air back, enjoying the shudder that runs through Chasten. He traces his tongue around the muscle, then laves at the hole with broad strokes. 

“Oh, fuck,” Chasten breathes. 

His hips are undulating against Pete’s face, and he presses down, pushing his tongue briefly inside. Chasten shouts wordlessly, and tenses to keep still. Pete licks across the hole a few more times before pressing inside again, more insistently this time, and repeats the process over. Chasten’s exhales take the form of one moan after another, and Pete feels heat pool in his stomach. He enjoys giving Chasten pleasure, almost as much as he enjoys being pleasured, and Chasten loves this. The sound of his husband’s gratification excites him, and he has to discipline himself not to just rut against the mattress in time with the movement of Chasten’s hips. He’s not sure how long he keeps at it, but his jaw starts bothering him again at about the same time as Chasten pulls away slightly. 

“Oh god, babe, please fuck me.” 

Pete wipes his mouth with the back of his hand. “Turn back over.” 

He gets the lube and opens Chasten as thoroughly as he knows how, steadily ignoring the increasing urgency with which he’s implored to get a move on. He is going to make this perfect, if he can, but Chasten’s impatient whimpers are getting to him, like a lot. 

“Babe, I am going to physically murder you if you don’t _fucking fuck me_,” Chasten warns while Pete slowly scissors three fingers in his ass. 

He smiles, and twists his fingers to press at Chasten’s prostate, wringing a broken groan from him, before withdrawing them slowly and lubing himself up. 

“You okay, love,” he says, and it strikes him this is the first time in eight sour months he’s called Chasten ‘love’ in private. He can tell Chasten realizes too, but he doesn’t say anything, except “Yeah, I am,” and Peter presses inside slowly. 

“Fuck,” he breathes. He doesn’t have the vocabulary to describe the singular experience of being inside Chasten. It’s slick, tight heat, but it’s also something more, something so primal and organic that he can’t quite grasp it. He tries his best to draw a deep breath, to try to make this last, though on some level he realizes that’s a pipe dream. “You feel so good, babe. You okay?”

Chasten is frowning, eyes closed and jaw tense, but he nods. “Yeah, just…” He exhales shakily and inhales deeply. “It’s been a while. Just give me a minute.” 

A minute is incidentally exactly what Pete needs, and he bends his head down to kiss Chasten while he waits. Chasten’s hands fly to hold at Pete’s waist, and he kisses Pete back deeply. 

“Yeah,” he says when they break apart. “Do it.” 

Pete pulls out slowly and pushes back in, unable to contain a groan when he is pressed all the way against Chasten again. He wants this to be slow and deliberate, but eight months of celibacy are telling him to go fuck himself with that. Instead he leans on his right hand and sneaks his left between them to stroke at Chasten’s hard and leaking cock in time with his thrusts inside him. 

“Oh shit, babe, that feels so––” Chasten moans. “–– that feels so good. Fuck me, do it.” 

It’s not going to be long at all, but he’s plunging himself into Chasten, giving him his all, and his every nerve ending is on fire. Their labored breaths mingle as they meet in another deep kiss. 

His orgasm hits him like a ton of bricks, catching him almost by surprise, and he sobs into Chasten’s mouth. He rests his forehead against Chasten’s shoulder to catch his breath which feels fucking impossible given how raw his chest feels. 

“Peter,” Chasten says, voice rough and brimming with urgency. “You need to touch me, babe.” 

He manages to lift himself off of Chasten enough to get his hand on him again, and it only takes a few strokes before Chasten shouts, shudders and comes, tightening almost painfully around Pete’s spent cock inside him. 

Pete withdraws carefully and lies down next to Chasten for a minute. “I was going for something more spectacular than that,” he says. 

“We’ll work our way up to spectacular,” Chasten says, kissing him gently. "We've got time."

He goes to the bathroom to clean himself up and brings a washcloth for Chasten to do the same, then settles in cuddled up against his husband. There is work to do, he attempts to remind himself, but Chasten is soft and warm and smells like home, and he can’t resist a few more minutes in his arms. He doesn’t remember falling asleep, but all of a sudden, for the second time that day, he is woken by his phone ringing angrily on the bedside table. 

“I am on the fucking plane, Pete, where the _fuck_ are you?”


End file.
